José Ortega y Gasset: Philosophy, Historical Context, and the Concept of God
Historical Context of Ortega y Gasset’s Philosophy
José Ortega y Gasset’s philosophy emerged during a critical period in Spain’s recent history. This era encompassed the Bourbon Restoration, under King Alfonso XII (1874-1923), the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera from 1923, the formal alternation between conservative and liberal parties, the proclamation of the Second Republic on April 14, 1931, the fall of the Republic, the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), and the early years of General Franco’
Read MoreDescartes’ Method: A Philosophical and Mathematical Approach
1. Statement of Method
1.1 Precautions Before
But as a man who has to walk alone in the dark, I resolved to move as slowly and use as much restraint in all, which, in exchange for moving forward a bit, I would keep at least from a very bad trip and fall. And even I did not start completely rid of any of the opinions that may slip once in my beliefs, without having been introduced by reason, even after spending some time devoted to project work that was undertaken, looking for the real method to the
Read MoreDescartes vs. Hume: A Philosophical Comparison
Let’s compare Descartes to Hume and later the rationalist authors. Hume was an empiricist. Empiricism, like rationalism, focuses on knowledge, sharing a concern for the epistemological and how we know (the reason for rationalism and empiricism of sensitive data), as well as materials that are factual knowledge. The main representatives of empiricism were Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in the English Enlightenment. The main representatives of rationalism were Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, and Malebranche.
Read MoreDeath, Transcendence, Evil, Science, and Utopia: A Philosophical Inquiry
The Meaning of Death and Transcendence
Two positions exist:
- Monism: Human reality is without composition. One example of this is pantheism.
- Materialist Monism: Death is the absolute limit of existence.
Dualism: Humans are made of two realities, modified by their composition:
- Material/Body
- Spiritual/Soul
The distribution of human components is another way to understand death. Death is a transition, a way to transcendence.
The Problem of Evil
Philosophical analysis of God based on the existence of evil in
Read MoreSpinoza’s Philosophy: Democracy as the Ideal State
Location of the Author
Spinoza is an author who belongs to the period of modern philosophy, namely the seventeenth-century rationalist stream. Regarding his political views, he could be included in the contractarian doctrines, which reached their roots and height from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with writers such as Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke. He championed democracy as a regulative idea of politics and criticized the absolutism of the monarchy of the time and the intrusion of religious
Read MoreNietzsche, Descartes, and Plato: Historical and Philosophical Contexts
Context of Nietzsche
Nietzsche lived in the century of the Industrial Revolution, which meant a shift from the agricultural to the industrial sector. A considerable increase occurred in the number of employees and their combined wealth. This created a new class, the bourgeoisie. Following these changes, worker movements appeared, and liberal capitalism developed. The aspirations and political demands of the bourgeoisie grew. These demands were crystallized during the century in systems endowed with
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